1907.] Rate of Elimination of Chloroform from the Blood. 585 



which the right external jugular vein was severed and the ends connected by 

 means of a glass tube with a lateral branch from which the blood was 

 withdrawn without interfering with- the flow of blood, samples of blood 

 being taken at the same time from the carotid artery. In other experiments, 

 samples were taken simultaneously from the carotid artery and central end 

 of the external jugular vein. In the following Tables IV aod V we give the 

 results of two types of these experiments. When the blood was taken 

 without much disturbance to the circulation (Table IV) and was really a 

 sample of particular venous blood coming partly from muscles and partly from 

 the brain, obvious variations in the chloroform-content of the blood occur 

 which may be due to variations in the rate of discharge from the tissues but 

 of the exact significance of which we have no knowledge. Similar variations 

 in the content of venous blood are noticed in the data given in Table V. 



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Minutes. 



Curve C. — Constructed from Data given in Experiment III. 

 Ordinates = milligrammes of chloroform in 100 grammes of blood ; abscissas = times in 



minutes after the cessation of chloroform-inhalation ; X = arterial blood ; 



X = venous blood. 



General Conclusions. 



The rate of elimination appears to depend upon the physiological state of 

 the individual animal, but when all the experiments described in this paper 

 are considered generally and compared with those in our previous papers, the 

 rate of output is found to be at first comparatively rapid, and then 

 subsequently becomes slower. The initial rates of elimination are, however, 

 much less rapid than the initial rates of the intake of chloroform, and, 

 therefore, on the whole, elimination is a much slower process than 

 assumption, a view which is borne out by a comparison of the times at which 

 the various reflexes disappear and reappear. 



As the results of his experiments on dogs, Nicloux* shows that the 

 arterial blood loses about half its chloroform-content five minutes after 

 inhalation is stopped, and at the end of one hour about one-third to 

 one-quarter of what the blood originally held is eliminated. At the end of 



* * Comptes Eendus,' 1906, vol. 60, p. 14. 



2 T 2 



